Here's What Not To Do At Your Bank's Drive-Up Service

It may seem like a task that is becoming less necessary with each passing day.More businesses are equipped to accept payments via credit and debit cards. Individuals have the same ability thanks to services like PayPal and Popmoney.

Some banks are even allow you to deposit checks electronically via smartphones and tablets. Still, going to the bank is a required errand for many people. If you are one of them, you need to be aware of the rules that govern the use of the drive-up service provided by your bank.

It may not seem like a big deal, but the purpose of the drive-up lanes is to speed up the banking process and provide those with simple transactions a break from having to wait on line inside for the full-service tellers. It is a way for banks to provide a better customer experience. It begins, however, with the customers themselves, and their ability to follow the rules that are in place to allow the banks to offer the experience they wish to provide.

Drive-up is only for customers

If you aren’t a customer of the bank, don’t bother going to the drive-up. All you will accomplish is wasting your time as well as that of the teller and the people around you. It doesn’t matter that the check you are trying to cash is drawn on an account held there, it just isn’t going to happen. When cashing a check that is presented by anyone other than the account holder, the signature needs to be verified, which takes time and defeats the purpose of having express lanes if that needs to be done.

It’s common for many people to not have a bank account, and many such people go to their employers bank to cash their checks. If you are part of this group, don’t even bother driving around, just go park the car and right inside.

Have your transaction ready

This is another major rule for keeping the drive-up lanes flowing smoothly. After all, it is called “drive-up” and “park here while gathering your transaction and filling out your paperwork” banking. It’s also not called “send us an empty canister and ask for deposit slips because you aren’t prepared” banking. When you show up to the bank, you need to already have all of your stuff done and ready to go. The teller may not be permitted to tell you “no” when you ask for something to prepare the transaction or make you leave if you are sitting there unprepared, but the customers behind you most certainly will!

So if you are taking money back from transactions, send your identification with everything the first time. If you are withdrawing money, make sure the form is signed. If you are depositing money, make sure the slip is fill out completely and that the totals are accurately calculated. And, if you are unsure if your transaction can be done there, don’t even waste anyone’s time to begin with–go inside from the beginning.

@wellsfargo do you not allow employees to make drive thru customers go inside if they aren’t ready or need to fill out slips? #fail

Don’t drive up to the bank looking to purchase a cashiers check, travellers checks, open or close an account, or do anything more than a simple deposit or withdrawal. The reason certain transactions are not permitted in the drive-up is the time it takes to process them. Most banks don’t provide much more than a cash drawer to the drive-up tellers, which means that they would have to start leaving their post in order to get certain transactions done, which is not what they are supposed to do.

And please, please, please don’t argue with the teller about how you have a kid in the car with you, or how you need to get back to work, or whatever else you want to try to get them to break the rules for you. In the time you spent waiting to get to the front of the line, then arguing you probably could have gone inside, done what you needed to, and been on your way already.

Limit your transactions please

Sure, banks are more technologically advanced these days, and the time it takes to process a transaction is much shorter than in days gone by. Does that mean you should carpool to the bank and send over transactions for the five people inside the car? Heck no! There is a purpose behind the limit to the number of transactions. Simply because the processing time is shorter, the teller has to be able to move between the lanes efficiently, and if they are stuck handling your five transactions, that means the other lanes are idling while the traffic build up behind them.

Again, if you need to transact on several accounts, or for different customers, head directly inside.

Don’t think that you are so special that the rules don’t apply to because you have a self-inflated ego, or because you may have a certain amount of money in the bank, or whatever other cockamamie excuse you can come with. Even if there isn’t a lot of traffic at that particular point in time, you never know what the next moment will bring.

Remember, speed and volume are the main objectives of the drive-up lanes. If you can’t abide by the rules of this area, then just go inside. Nobody wants to sit in their car, delaying the rest of their plans while you fumble around looking for a pen or trying to calculate the deposit amount on your ticket. Not only is it annoying, it’s really discourteous to your fellow bank patrons, and you never know who you may piss off in the process.

Do you still even visit your bank’s physical location? If you do, do you ever get frustrated at the lack of courtesy shown by people who break these common rules? Are you one of those who are guilty of breaking any of these rules?

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